Requirements management

[keninparis]

And miss all the fun?

keep banging on about the damaging effects of scope creep

[TheFaQQer]

If there is to be a phase 2, and you have the project sponsor on-side, then why not see whether there is any prospect of cutting the consultancy out completely, and get you in to do it instead?

Then you might have some more control, and some more money out of the project.

(As strange as it may seem, that's actually a serious suggestion, not just so we can poke fun at you for cocking up the next phase, honest)

[d000hg]

Lots of new requirements coming out. It's scary to think that they have already spent 2 years doing requirements gathering, and after all of that and the workshops I ran there are still significant gaps.

Is that 2 years of work also from the £260k budget? Did the budget ever include any money for actual development?

Is the relationship good enough, and the product sufficiently important, that they could renegotiate budget before this phase is complete? e.g. "it's clear you have a lot of exciting new features which won't fit under the initial budget, we'd be happy to negotiate an increased budget while work is in progress to avoid later delays"... that's what happened on one project I was on when it became clear the initial budget was simply far too small.

[suityou01]

Is that 2 years of work also from the £260k budget? Did the budget ever include any money for actual development?

Is the relationship good enough, and the product sufficiently important, that they could renegotiate budget before this phase is complete? e.g. "it's clear you have a lot of exciting new features which won't fit under the initial budget, we'd be happy to negotiate an increased budget while work is in progress to avoid later delays"... that's what happened on one project I was on when it became clear the initial budget was simply far too small.

No, that is the budget for the consultancy to develop and deliver the system into product based on the requirements that we were told were all done and dusted.

What you describe here old son is what the consultancy call a change request, eg more budget.
Change requests for new features is something of a dirty word with the sponsor at present. All I have done is flip to agile requirements management eg - you have 60 days development planned in and for that based on your priority calls this is what you can have. Anything more requires either a bigger time box, or additional time boxes.

Simples.

[Bunk]

Is that 2 years of work also from the £260k budget? Did the budget ever include any money for actual development?

Of course, they're advertising at this very moment for programmers on £9/hour.

[eek]

Change requests for new features is something of a dirty word with the sponsor at present. All I have done is flip to agile requirements management eg - you have 60 days development planned in and for that based on your priority calls this is what you can have.

Simples.

60days development for £260k

What Government department is this?

[suityou01]

60days development for £260k

What Government department is this?

Dude this is a 20 week project. 60 days development across 2 developers so 120 man days.

[Freamon]

Freamon if you sit on the fence too much you lose credibility and get an arse full of splinters.
Where do you stand on scope creep? A change is pretty clear on a fixed price contract. My specifications are explicit. If after the requirements freeze you then ask for something that requires more work to the specification, logical data model, extra dev effort, extra test cases, potential for more bug fixing then this is a change that needs to be priced in.

You liberal daily mail reading types could never run a fixed price project for a consultancy as you'd all go bust in a heartbeat.

No, the question you need to ask yourself is "given the strengths and weaknesses of the contract (bearing in mind this is IT, so holding someone to something via a contract is an order of magnitude more difficult than normal), and the incentives that exist on either side, what are the chances of one or other side agreeing to budge". It's all very well crying change request, but unless 1. the contract explicitly says that X will be delivered, and is detailed enough for that to stand up in case of a dispute, and 2. both sides agree that this is the case, then there is a chance that a change request might actually get agreed. If not, then I as the customer will simply say "sorry, no more budget, you need to deliver it on the original timescales".

[suityou01]

No, the question you need to ask yourself is "given the strengths and weaknesses of the contract (bearing in mind this is IT, so holding someone to something via a contract is an order of magnitude more difficult than normal), and the incentives that exist on either side, what are the chances of one or other side agreeing to budge". It's all very well crying change request, but unless 1. the contract explicitly says that X will be delivered, and is detailed enough for that to stand up in case of a dispute, and 2. both sides agree that this is the case, then there is a chance that a change request might actually get agreed. If not, then I as the customer will simply say "sorry, no more budget, you need to deliver it on the original timescales".

I agree with all of that. Remember, it's not me crying change request - it's the consultancy. That said, the deliverables are clear and the change requests being asked for would indeed stand up in court I think.

ClientCo are a bunch of disorganised clueless muppets that couldn't manage a turd in a public loo. They are quite slimy and try and smear and wriggle at every twist and turn. Their PM is a lightweight PM but heavyweight politician so every meeting you're just trying to dodge the smear, cover your arse and not get spattered. This in itself is tiresome and getting boring.

I got into IT to deliver systems. Good hard work and a bit of cooperation are the tools of my trade. This fetid pit of sharky arse wipes is horrible. Each and every one of them all about their own selfish ends with not a flying fook of a care about the project.

Nasty business.

[Freamon]

I agree with all of that. Remember, it's not me crying change request - it's the consultancy. That said, the deliverables are clear and the change requests being asked for would indeed stand up in court I think.

ClientCo are a bunch of disorganised clueless muppets that couldn't manage a turd in a public loo. They are quite slimy and try and smear and wriggle at every twist and turn. Their PM is a lightweight PM but heavyweight politician so every meeting you're just trying to dodge the smear, cover your arse and not get spattered. This in itself is tiresome and getting boring.

I got into IT to deliver systems. Good hard work and a bit of cooperation are the tools of my trade. This fetid pit of sharky arse wipes is horrible. Each and every one of them all about their own selfish ends with not a flying fook of a care about the project.

Nasty business.

Fair enough. In cases where the contract explicitly states the client will deliver something to the consultancy on a particular day (e.g. a development environment, assuming there is some wording around it being "fit for purpose" or similar) then the client won't have much of a leg to stand on.

But the flip side is a CR arising from a clarification/elaboration of requirements. Suppliers will often say that because a document is "signed off", any deviation from what has been "agreed" in the document after it's been "signed off" constitutes a change request and more money for them. Check the contract very carefully, and be aware of the incentives on all sides. I have spent weeks sometimes months arguing the toss on behalf of clients, and in most cases the supplier finds, when they actually read their contract, that there is no contractual basis for such a CR, as the contract makes provisions for clarifications and elaborations, and explicitly says that documentation for a phase is only "accepted" by the client, rather than "signed off". I've advised clients to ensure they get these clauses into a contract prior to procurement, because in IT delivery, requirements DO legitimately get elaborated and clarified during development, and if every time this happens you are hit with a CR then your supplier has you over a barrel.

The above notwithstanding, incentives also play a big part. If there is no incentive for someone to fight on commercials, the contract ceases to mean very much. I have experienced situations where a supplier was asking for more money via CR for something that very very obviously was not a change as per the contract, but the commercial managers on the client side agreed to pay for the CR anyway, because politically it was to their benefit to do so, and the goodwill gained by accepting the CR was far greater than the cost of the CR itself. So the contract doesn't always win, not by a long shot.